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This is a naturally occurring source of methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas. Granted, it doesn't all vent directly into atmosphere without a lot of ocean in between, nor is global warming the exclusive focus of the article, but I seem to recall an earlier article that once suggested such venting might be responsible for the occasional loss of aircraft and lives in and around the Bermuda Triangle. As conspiracy theories fly, this one appears to have more weight of argument than any of the stinky hot air exiting the mouth of one presidential candidate who, for political reasons, happens to deny global warming as much as some of the posters in this forum. At least, it has logic. Methane does occur naturally, even places known to be devoid of life processes.

Timojin doesn't seem to be saying this as if it were fact about global warming in the OP any more than the link article does. Do you object to New Scientist coverage of it?

Just because a conclusion is based on anecdotal evidence doesn't make it wrong. It makes it a an observation and a candidate hypothesis until it is tested, just like the idea that smoking causes lung cancer is a conclusion based on anecdotal evidence. Correlation is not causation is logically fine, but observation is also an indispensable part of any science that is not done or paid for by idiots with other concerns to their own agendas.

I think that somebody will need to learn how much methane is being released on the ocean floor, not only along the US west coast (where I live!) but worldwide, throughout the world's oceans. It might be a huge amount, or a minuscule amount compared to the entire atmosphere.

What an odd, random and totally wrong thing to say! It's almost as if you know it is wrong and are baiting someone to respond correcting you...

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Well os not wrong . think about do we produce oxygen or we consume it . Methane is going to increase the greenhouse gases that will increase the temperature of the earth . As we are deforestation the land, there will be less oXygen produced . Now we are increasing in population ( consumers of Oxygen ). there is more oxygen demand, Not only we consume oxygen for our metabolism , but for burning fuel. So we definitively we will decrease Oxygen in the atmosphere. And since oxygen Nitrogen , CO2 and others are part of the atmospheric pressure , the by increasing methane it have to affect the partial pressure of Oxygen.

Well os not wrong . think about do we produce oxygen or we consume it . Methane is going to increase the greenhouse gases that will increase the temperature of the earth . As we are deforestation the land, there will be less oXygen produced . Now we are increasing in population ( consumers of Oxygen ). there is more oxygen demand, Not only we consume oxygen for our metabolism , but for burning fuel. So we definitively we will decrease Oxygen in the atmosphere. And since oxygen Nitrogen , CO2 and others are part of the atmospheric pressure , the by increasing methane it have to affect the partial pressure of Oxygen.

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Oh, I see - it wasn't exactly wrong, it was more gibberish. Got it. Do yourself a favor though and google "partial pressure" and read up on what it is/how it works.

Oh, I see - it wasn't exactly wrong, it was more gibberish. Got it. Do yourself a favor though and google "partial pressure" and read up on what it is/how it works.

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If an atmosphere is 50% oxygen and 50% nitrogen by volume, ant at 1 atmosphere exerts 14.7 lbs per square inch, and the gram molecular weights of the gasses are comparable, then each produces about half of atmospheric pressure. But a heavier molecule such as methane or carbon dioxide is less buoyant than either oxygen, niitrogen, or even ozone, and so these heavier gasses tend to mostly reside in the lower atmosphere. This does not mean there is no ozone or chlorofluorocarbons in the upper atmosphere, only that there will be less than equal amounts at a given temperature and pressure.

Does this make it clear, no one here seems to have the slightest clue about what partial pressure does or why it is even important in atmospheric physics? I figured that much out from the OP. But thanks for sharing your expertise.

No matter where in the atmosphere they mostly reside, greenhouse gasses like methane will act to reduce the albedo (solar energy input vs solar energy output) of an atmosphere that covers the entire planet. Heavily industrialized producers of greenhouse gasses or areas that have pockets of subterranean methane venting from the ocean floor will both cause global warming by this mechanism to be worse.

I'm pretty sure you don't either.[/QUOTE]
You'd be wrong. In the graduate physics laboratory, I needed to measure the partial pressure of freon for a freon-pneumatic harmonic oscillator experiment. The oscillator balanced a jet of freon supporting the oscillating mass against atmospheric pressure. If that isn't exposure enough for you, what's yours, or is it just a determination that no one but you has a clue about the atmospheric science connected with GW?

That particular experiment, done long before the realization that freon was a contributor to degrading the hole in the ozone layer of the atmosphere, would be banned today, of course. It vented a great deal more freon into the atmosphere for several test setups than 100 junkyards full of leaky old refrigeration equipment. All in the name of science education. Had I known what it was doing, I might have dropped the course. So much for academic research into science laboratory safety.

Thomas Midgley probably thought he was doing science and people a lot of good in both cases. That's what GW deniers look like to the rest of science in 2016. Of course, none of this is anything new to science or society, nor are such folks trying to do anyone harm. Tragically, Midgley was killed in an accident involving being strangled in a malfunctioning hospital traction apparatus. As sad at least as Otis the engineer and inventor of the elevator being killed in an elevator accident.

I'm sure, both were well credentialed for the work they were doing also. That doesn't make them any less Darwin award worthy.

And if you are a GW denier, you probably also find that you like the warm but spectrally inefficient glow of Thomas Edison's incandescent lamps too, don't you? If only we could reclaim all of the energy we wasted on those damned things, we probably wouldn't be so worried about Global Warming today.

A little cooler planet Earth would be good. A LOT fewer people inhabiting it would be even better, and I say we start lightening the load with the GW deniers. Who else?

The above link is just to demonstrate that I'm not the only one who has noticed a certain similarity in the toxic stories of leaded gasoline, chlorofluorocarbons and the ozone layer, and global warming denial. Noticing a scientific solution to a problem in industry or medicine rarely happens without unforeseen consequences or side effects. Avoiding those before they become worse and/or irreversible is even better science. Burning more fossil fuels to more heavily industrialize and economically develop a global marketplace has consequences just like anything else we choose to do. Denial that it will have an effect on the planet reveals a Darwin award-winning type of mentality worthy of the likes of Donald Trump or his supporters.

Sure, casino owners need to be paranoid enough to suspect any gambler trying to game their system, but do we really want or need a government that is run by someone with that kind of attitude or conspiracy theory against the populace it is supposed to serve? How do you figure this will be a win-win situation for anyone but maybe Trump himself?

If an atmosphere is 50% oxygen and 50% nitrogen by volume, ant at 1 atmosphere exerts 14.7 lbs per square inch, and the gram molecular weights of the gasses are comparable, then each produces about half of atmospheric pressure. But a heavier molecule such as methane or carbon dioxide is less buoyant than either oxygen, niitrogen, or even ozone, and so these heavier gasses tend to mostly reside in the lower atmosphere. This does not mean there is no ozone or chlorofluorocarbons in the upper atmosphere, only that there will be less than equal amounts at a given temperature and pressure.

Does this make it clear, no one here seems to have the slightest clue about what partial pressure does or why it is even important in atmospheric physics? I figured that much out from the OP. But thanks for sharing your expertise.

No matter where in the atmosphere they mostly reside, greenhouse gasses like methane will act to reduce the albedo (solar energy input vs solar energy output) of an atmosphere that covers the entire planet. Heavily industrialized producers of greenhouse gasses or areas that have pockets of subterranean methane venting from the ocean floor will both cause global warming by this mechanism to be worse.

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Methane has a molecular weight of 16, exactly half that of oxygen and only slightly over half that of nitrogen (28). So it is basically half as dense as air and will tend to rise. You are speaking ex ano again, Dan.